The “new” Harper Lee novel, “Go Set A Watchman”, has the literati all atwitter (especially on Twitter, I suppose) about its reveal about Atticus Finch- that far from being a northern progressive on race, he was actually a southern moderate, which is to say a flaming racist.

This of course shows a complete lack of understanding of the southern organization of race and class. This might be stated as, from the viewpoint of an upper middle class southerner like Ms. Lee- good blacks (which is almost all, since blacks don’t trouble the powerful) good, bad whites (which is many, because in a democratic society people don’t need to conform to the views of their betters) bad.

The novel works by creating a new villain, a new fear, because every good story needs these. The villain- poor whites- wasn’t really new, because they had been viewed with contempt by elite southern whites all along. Northerners had never thought of this too much- to them poor southern whites seemed to be strange and primitive yet somehow lovable, like the hillbilly cartoon character Snuffy Smith.

I have written about this before. Bottom line is the story just shifts vilification for social problems from one group, blacks, to another, poor whites. How anyone thinks this is the most remotely plausible solution to anything is a mystery, but it’s how society is organized.

If you are a white person below a certain level, you just don’t count. You are the problem, and the solution is something done to you, not for you. You are tolerated for what you can do- drive a truck, fix something, make something- but the tolerance is thin and conditional.

Everybody knows this. Some have to live with it. The Confederate battle flag says, “Yeah, I know the deal- I know what you think of me, but f*** you, I have my own thing going.”

The equivalent in England is the English flag- the flag of football hooligans and working class folk. The Confederate flag has specific regional and ethnic associations that make it foreign to most of the US, but it is still seen far and wide.

If you are a lower class white person who is supposed to make himself useful to his betters, without too much compensation, keep his mouth shut, and show fawning respect for the powerful- if you are, in other words, a white nigger- the Confederate flag is your flag.

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About thrasymachus33308

I like fast cars, fast women and southern-fried rock. I have an ongoing beef with George Orwell. I take my name from a character in Plato's "Republic" who was exasperated with the kind of turgid BS that passed for deep thought and political discourse in that time and place, just as I am today. The character, whose name means "fierce fighter" was based on a real person but nobody knows for sure what his actual political beliefs were. I take my pseudonym from a character in an Adam Sandler song who was a obnoxious jerk who pissed off everybody.

The internet may indeed be the new Gutenberg press. A lot of alt-Right readers and virtually all bloggers are not lower class Whites. Many aren’t Southern, and they’re rallying around the Stars and Bars. Many aren’t even American. I was not born American and I live in the North, and I rally around that flag.

Thras, will you be doing a specific post on the Charleston shooter and his manifesto (or what little bit of writing he left behind)? Dylan Roof was not the most articulate person in the world, but he hit on some points that you do (such as the real reason for segregation, and the abuse that lower class whites endure when zoned into black school districts). Not to condone his actions, but someone (besides a couple of outliers at Alternative Right and Counter-Currents) needs to say the things that need to be said about this, and you’re probably the best one to do it, even though it’s a daunting, thankless task.

I probably should, but I don’t write too much. Life is hell if you have to be around poor black people, and anybody who wants a “good school” for their child can’t contradict me, without lying. But nobody cares.

Yes, being poor and white in a “diverse” area really sucks. My wife and I have dreamed for years of getting out of Florida. Given our family backgrounds some of our children may end up with average intelligence and the middle class might be out of their reach. Better to be poor is some economically depressed whitopia.

William Lind (a military strategist) has an interesting (non-WN) take over at Traditional Right. Basically Roof is a moron who accomplished exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do (not that his particular goal was noble.)

The three bestselling books on Amazon.com right now are by Harper Lee (her “new” one and “To Kill a Mockingbird”) and a book of letters Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote to his son, about Ferguson, racism, Trayvon, ectetera. Welcome to Hell. This is, as Breitbart observed of MSNBC’s hiring of Al Sharpton, nothing short of Dada.